Employed
by MechaYourOwn
Summary: One-shot. Ironman centric. Stark didn't like people messing with his tech. He typically didn't like it when people tried to recreate it either. This one case? Something special.


**Notes: I feel like this is straight-forward enough for the readers. This idea kinda hit me and originally, it was meant to be a humor or crack-like one-shot, but somehow, it got to be somewhat feely? Lol. Also, I mention a bit of faulty science, but it's whatever.**

 **Note 2: Feel free to send me a request for a DP one-shot, crossover or otherwise. I can practically do anything (doesn't mean I will do it, though). So long as I recognize the fandoms, I'd likely be able to work with it.**

 **Fandoms: Iron Man & Danny Phantom**

 **Word Count: 1606**

 **Rating: T**

 **Genre: Friendship & Science Fiction**

 **Characters: Danny Fenton, Tony Stark**

 **Warnings: Dead!FentonParents, faulty science, Headcanon smart!Danny. Unedited, so pardon any mistakes**

* * *

When Tony first noticed the employee, it was when he altered some of his suit.

There were very few times Tony let anyone tamper with his suit. Never had he willingly let any of his employees even touch it, and for many reasons. The employees were more likely to get hurt messing with it and actually learning from it or improving it. The employees weren't generally smart enough to improve it, much less understand it. And, if by some stroke of genius, an employee was intelligent enough to understand and improve the mechanics, there was a high chance they'd try to either become a hero themselves or become a villain. In which, Tony would have to accept responsibility, and he didn't really like doing that.

So, no employee had ever touched some of his mechanics. That was why it surprised him _so much_ when, on his way to bribe Pepper with some flowers and chocolate, he walked by one of the glass doors and saw an employee poking around one of his Iron Man hands. The billionaire and ex-CEO paused, eyes wide, as he watched some raven-haired person fiddling with machinery he no doubtably couldn't understand.

Tony calmly walked through the glass door, set the flowers and chocolates on a side table, and approached the adult from behind. The guy tensed a bit and glanced behind him, bright blue eyes locking with Tony's. Tony raised an eyebrow and the employee had the decency to look ashamed.

"Mr. Stark!" the raven-haired guy exclaimed, pushing away from the table a bit but made no effort to hide the mechanical had.

"Employee," the billionaire greeted. He walked over closer so he was standing right next to the guy, but his attention was firmly placed on the hand. The blaster and anything relating to it had been removed and completely dismantled, shoved to the side, and the guy seemed to be focusing on the hand. "What exactly is your line of work here?"

Tony's gaze fell to the guy and he got his first actual look at him. He couldn't have been more than early twenties. In fact, he looked almost like a teenager. He'd have to have JARVIS send him information on the guy - teen? - later. Right now, Tony needed to see exactly what the employee was doing with _his hand._

"I, err, work in mechanics," the guy informed. "I help design the structures for some of the resourceful energy devices."

"Uh huh. So why are you messing with my hand?"

The guy blinked, and then smiled a bit. "I was curious? And it's not actually your hand. I built it."

Tony blinked. "What?"

"Yeah! Your design for the suit somewhat resembled something my parents tried to design. It took forever for it to work, and shortly after it did, it kinda… blew up." The teen rubbed the back of his neck nervously, a shy smile on his face. "I thought I'd try to recreate it. Sorta. I don't know how the full thing worked, so I'm basing it off of what your suit seemed to look like. The blasters are a bit useless though…"

The billionaire took a few slow breaths. "Your parents are… inventors?"

The employee nodded. "Yeah. They're not exactly… known, though."

"Who are you?" Tony asked finally.

"Danny," the teen offered. "Danny Fenton. My parents were Maddie and Jack Fenton, though you've probably never heard of them."

Tony didn't miss how Danny said _'were'_ instead of ' _are_ ', but he kept quiet about that. And Danny was right; Tony had never heard of those two. "Never heard of them. Now, few questions."

"Shoot."

Well, no reason to hesitate. "Are you planning on taking this technology and becoming a supervillain?"

The teen looked honestly horrified. " _No!_ If someone with bad intentions had technology that I think I can design, or your technology, it'd be-"

"-Horrible, I know," Tony interrupted. "Are you planning on becoming a superhero?"

"No," the teen said more calmly. "I, uh, I don't think that life would be for me."

"Damn right," the billionaire concluded. "Now, last one. When you finish with this, do you have any plans to sell the design or release it?"

"Nope." Danny had a small smile, seeming to realize that Tony was questioning him out of concern. "This is just me trying to rebuild my parents' designs, Mr. Stark. Before you ask, I'm pretty sure no one would be even interested in something of my parents'. They weren't very respected. And I still get my own work done. I finished this week's project yesterday, and tomorrow, I'm starting next week's. So I'm not shrinking from my work or anything."

"How old are you?"

"Nineteen." Ha, so he was a teenager. Barely. Good to know.

"How did you get a job working here and… nevermind. Young genius?"

The teen shook his head. "Not exactly. I kind of… impressed one of the people here and they let me come in. I passed. I got a job."

"...So young genius who never went to college," Tony concluded.

"Something like that. And I have two semesters left before I get my mechanical engineering degree and environmental science degree... "

"Good. Your brains are better used here then there, for now, anyway." Tony had actually stopped paying attention. He needed to look up some scientists.

Wait, hadn't he come here for a reason?

 _Pepper_. Aw, she was going to be pissed he was late.

"Okay, kid. I've got to go, but expect to hear from me in the future." Tony turned around abruptly and walked off, grabbing the flowers and chocolate on his way out.

The teen let out a small laugh, then glanced down at the hand with a pained smile. "Yeah… being a hero really isn't me anymore."

* * *

"JARVIS, get me everything you have on Danny Fenton and his family," Tony instructed, falling into the chair of his private lab. It was two days after his initial meeting with the young employee and he had relatively no trust in the guy.

And when he glanced at his parents' records, Tony couldn't help but laugh. _Ghosts?_ No wonder they weren't respected or heard of. Some of their published designs, though, were highly impressive. The weaponry looked like something Stark would have designed personally. It looked dangerous, although there was no bullets, no energy source, that the blueprints mentioned. What was he supposed to use to even power the gun? And how?

Looking into some of Maddison Fenton's research papers clued him in. Apparently, ectoplasm was an usable energy source that the guns worked with easily. Along with that, it was supposedly harmless to humans. There was an entire paper detailing Maddison's research into the chemistry and structure of ectoplasm - a radon-like substance that had an incredibly low radioactivity. It seemed like something from science fiction, but the scientific approach into the supposed paranormal gained Tony's interest.

After all, if Thor could exist, who's to say that ectoplasm-based entities couldn't?

Tony spent hours looking through the Fenton's' work. Any "open to the public" blueprints he downloaded and any interesting paper he read. He kept his eyes open for anything hand-like or possibly prosthetic, but never found one. After six hours of digging, he pushed it aside and told JARVIS to bring up some of the blueprints in a hologram and began to study and tamper with that. Some improvements here and there and Tony could create small possibly weapons that could work with his Iron Man suit.

Despite understanding why the two scientists never got famous, he felt they deserved a bit of credit for the ingenious designs. Anyone incredibly intelligent can believe something incredibly stupid.

The next day, Tony looked into the actual family. The Fenton parents died in a supposed lab accident, but the details were vague. Danny had been at school at the time (poor kid, he was only sixteen) and his older sister (who was hot) had been attending a college interview. The teens were supposed to have gone under the care of Vladimir Masters (Tony winced - him and that guy never got along), but Jazz had stepped up as an adult and took in Danny.

Danny, who's high school grades were shit, seemed to have hit a life turn-around. The grades went from C's and D's to A's. By the end of his senior year, Danny had gotten his GPA up to a solid 3.6 on a 4.0 scale. Not bad, considering it had been low before.

Tony felt mildly impressed. If losing his parents had inspired Danny to study and go into mechanics, then good for him! Or, well, _not_ , because death sucked, but the kid's life had obviously turned out better.

The billionaire never looked into the rich history of Amity Park.

The billionaire never had a reason to suspect anything of Danny until two months later, the employee was in the hospital after a massive car crash. Tony, out of childish concern, had gone and learned very quickly something was _off._ An average body temperature of 74 degrees? A heart rate of 42? And yet, the boy still breathed like normal and seemed to funtion well enough when he woke up.

Pepper realized Tony's change in behavior around that kid, even. Somehow, over the two months, occasional visits, and sciencey talk, Tony had grown to worry about the teen. When the accident happened, something so _normal_ , Tony had decided to take care of Danny's doctors and conditions when the young adult asked him to keep it private.

Tony considered the young adult a friend.

He'd learn all the secrets eventually. But right then, Danny seemed to need a friend, too.

* * *

 **Fin.**


End file.
